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Daniel Boulud
Daniel Boulud is often called a
"celebrity chef,"
meaning one who is as well-known--and considered as glamorous--as the
famous patrons he or she serves. Born and raised in France, Boulud spent
over a decade honing his culinary artistry there and elsewhere in
Europe. He made his name in the United States when he served as
executive chef of the legendary restaurant Le Cirque, in New York City,
beginning in 1986. In a profile of Boulud for the New York Times
Magazine (April 5, 1992), written about six years later, Molly O’Neill
wrote, "Half of Boulud is a
big-city executive; the other half is a shy, fastidious Frenchman who
cooked his way off his family’s
farm to the apex of his craft." In
1993 Boulud opened his own upscale restaurant, Daniel, in New York City.
There, according to Ruth Reichl, the editor of Gourmet magazine,
as quoted by John Tanasychuk in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
Sun-Sentinel (June 5, 2003), Boulud has taken
"everything that’s
so good about being French and everything that’s
good about being American and combined them"--"good"
referring both to food that is superlatively prepared and served and to
an unusually warm, friendly atmosphere. Daniel, which serves French
cuisine and dishes that are variations on its themes, is one of only a
handful of restaurants to have received the New York Times's
highest rating--four stars; the International Herald Tribune has
ranked it among the 10 finest restaurants in the world, and, year after
year, other sources have listed it among the 10 best restaurants in New
York City as well as the rest of the U.S. Boulud himself has also won
many honors, among them the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Chef of
the Year Award, in 1994. In the New York Times (March 14, 2001),
William Grimes, the paper's longtime food critic, wrote after having a
meal at Daniel, "Mr. Boulud has
both feet planted in the rich gastronomic soil of the Lyonnais region
[of France], an area known for its robust, no-holds-barred cuisine. . .
. Rarely have I experienced so much distress in ordering dinner, or
witnessed so much around-the-table envy once the food arrived. Mr.
Boulud's go-for-broke menu inspires greed. You want it all."
Building on his success, Boulud has become the head of a growing
culinary empire. In addition to Daniel, he now owns two Cafes Boulud
(one in New York City and another in Florida) and DB Bistro Moderne (in
New York City); from 1997 to 2000 he co-owned Payard Patisserie & Bistro
(in New York City). He also co-owns the catering division of Daniel,
called Feast & Fetes, and he has written several cookbooks. Daniel
Boulud Kitchen (or DBK), a professional line of cookware, cutlery, and
kitchen tools designed by Boulud and a team of industrial designers, has
been on sale since 2004.
Boulud "has
a perfect command of technique, and that leads to depth of flavor,"
Susan Spicer, the chef and owner of the restaurant Bayona, in New
Orleans, Louisiana, told Peter Kaminsky for New York (December
14, 1998, on-line). "Sometimes he
extracts flavor, sometimes he infuses it, but the techniques, the way he
roasts bones to make a stock, the way he caramelizes vegetables, the way
he makes a broth of salmon, all show an understanding of what you do
with ingredients to get the most out of them."
"What makes [Boulud] different from
every other chef who says that his food is based on fresh local
ingredients and regional fare is technique,"
Dorothy Cann Hamilton, the founder of the French Culinary Institute,
told Kaminsky. "The flavors are
precise, identifiable, and at their peak."
Boulud himself told Kaminsky, "It's
not even so much about technique as it is about understanding the
connecting wire of the recipe and being sensitive to how each ingredient
hangs off that wire." According to
his wife, Micky, Boulud "thinks
about food deeply and all the time."
One of the five children of Julien and
Marie Boulud, Daniel Boulud was born on March 25, 1955 near Lyon,
France. He grew up on the Boulud family farm, in the small town of
St.-Pierre-de-Chandieu, outside Lyon. His parents and other relatives
grew vegetables and transported them by truck to local markets to sell.
The Bouluds also raised turkeys, lambs, and chickens for meat and
livestock for milk and cheese, and they ran a roadside cafe, founded by
Boulud's great-grandparents, whose clientele consisted mainly of their
neighbors. "It was the rendezvous
point for generations of townsfolk,"
Boulud wrote in the introduction to his book Daniel Boulud's Cafe
Boulud Cookbook, as quoted on the WNYC Web site. His paternal
grandmother, Francine Boulud, cooked most of the family's meals. Boulud
has fondly recalled omelets that she prepared with fresh morels (edible
fungi) and wild asparagus.
In 1969, at age 14, Boulud left his family
to apprentice at Nandron, a restaurant in Lyon, owned by Gerard Nandron,
that had received two stars in the Michelin Guide. (Three stars
is the highest rating conferred by Michelin, whose guide to restaurants
is considered the most influential in Europe. The vast majority of
eating places get no stars.) Boulud's working conditions were very
difficult, and he earned a pittance for 13-hour days.
"No one asked if you were happy
with the arrangement," he told O’Neill.
Nevertheless, he knew that he was lucky to have the chance to learn at
Nandron, not least because while there he became acquainted with a few
of France's outstanding chefs. In 1972 he was named among the finalists
for the title "best culinary
apprentice in France." Soon
afterward, in 1973, Boulud took a job as first cook at La Mere Blanc, a
three-star restaurant in Vonnas, France, owned by Georges Blanc (who was
also its executive chef), where he further polished his skills. (A first
cook performs general cooking and/or baking tasks under supervision.)
Blanc later changed the name of the restaurant to Georges Blanc.
According to Peter Kaminsky, "Blanc
opened Boulud's eyes to the possibilities of adding elegance to basic
country ingredients."
In 1974 Boulud left Blanc to work at Le
Moulin de Mougins, in the town of Mougins, under the renowned chef Roger
Verge, as first cook and then as chef de partie. (Chef de partie is the
fourth-ranking position in a restaurant kitchen, after the executive
chef, who is the administrator of the kitchen; the chef de cuisine, or
head cook; and the sous chef, who is second in command after the head
chef and takes over when the head chef is absent. A chef de partie is in
charge of particular sections of the kitchen, such as the pastry section
or the soup section.) Verge told Kaminsky that Boulud demonstrated
"a mastery of the simplest
ingredients" and the instincts of
an outstanding saucier (maker of sauces). Boulud, for his part,
told Kaminsky that Verge introduced him to a
"sunnier"
cuisine than Blanc's, one that was "much
more complex in its sauces and much more vegetable-oriented."
He told O’Neill that Verge had
transmitted to him "an energy, a
spirit of adventure."
Boulud and Verge remained in touch after
Boulud took a job, in 1976, as the sous chef in the four-star Plaza
Hotel restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark, for which Verge served as a
consultant. In Denmark Boulud experimented with ingredients that were
new to him, such as elk meat, lingonberries (also called mountain
cranberries), and many kinds of fish. "With
the known, you are in control," he
noted to O'Neill. "With the
unknown, you have no choice but to trust your instincts and just cook."
Boulud next worked, as chef de partie, with the highly regarded chef
Michel Guerard in Les Pres d'Eugenie, a three-star restaurant in
southern France. In 1980 he returned to Denmark to serve as the sous
chef at the Plaza Hotel. Later that year, also in Copenhagen, he cooked
for Les Etoiles, which that year had been voted the number-one
restaurant in Denmark. For a short time toward the end of 1980, he
cooked for a wealthy Saudi Arabian in Mougins. In 1981 he moved to
Washington, D.C., where he became the private chef for Roland de
Kergorlay, who then headed the U.S.-posted delegation from the European
Commission.
In 1982 Boulud relocated to New York City,
where, for about two years, he managed, and served as co-chef at, the
Westbury Hotel's restaurant, the Polo Lounge--a position he secured, as
he told Peter Kaminsky, by preparing a 15-course lunch for those who
interviewed him. Then, for another two years or so, he worked as the
executive chef at Le Regence, at the Plaza-Athenee Hotel. During that
period, according to O’Neill,
Boulud gained a reputation for the "vivid
modernity" of his cuisine. His
skills impressed the Italian-born Sirio Maccioni, the charismatic owner
of Le Cirque; located on East 65th Street in Manhattan, Le Cirque had
become a choice place to dine among the rich, famous, and
powerful--everyone from First Lady Nancy Reagan to the musician Frank
Zappa. As quoted on the Le Cirque Web site, the food writer and critic
James Villas, in an article for Town & Country, once described
the restaurant as a "gastronomic
mecca" and
"premier social dining room"
and noted that it had come to "symbolize
all that is so cosmopolitan, so kinetic, so thrilling about New York."
In 1986 Boulud became Le Cirque's executive chef. From Maccioni,
according to Peter Kaminsky, Boulud "learned
how to work the front of the house, how to make guests feel pampered,
loved, special." Boulud developed
an easy rapport with Le Cirque's clientele, which, as William Grimes
described it to John Tanasychuk, was made up of
"exclusive, very well-to-do, Upper
East Side New Yorkers who are very clubby."
"He's very much a part of the
community that his restaurants cater to,"
Grimes said.
Boulud's noteworthy diplomacy and tact
notwithstanding, "something in the
set of his Lyonnais jaw," according
to O’Neill,
"belies the warm, easygoing smile
that [Boulud] flashes for the cameras of food and society magazines."
Rather, she wrote, he is "easily
bored" and
"relentlessly demanding."
But in displaying the latter characteristic, Boulud is no different from
the executive chef or chef de cuisine of any top-tier restaurant. As
Patricia B. Dailey wrote for Restaurants and Institutions (March
1, 2004), "Chefs are driven by
attitude and moxie. They’re loath
to accept mediocrity. . . . Chefs understand with absolute certainty the
importance of paying attention to everything—the
big picture as well as the smallest detail. A single thing can bring
down the house—even one bad clam or
a bunch of unwashed green onions."
On any given day there were often as many as 20 specials on Le Cirque’s
menu: for example, fresh crab claws on a confetti of julienned mango,
chayote, and almonds, seasoned with lime and coriander; roast duck in a
bacon jacket; and roasted pig's feet with fresh morels and Chinese pea
shoots. With Boulud in the kitchen, Le Cirque reached the pinnacle of
its popularity.
Regarding that time in his life, Boulud
recalled to Cynthia Steffe for the Palm Beach, Florida, Post
(December 31, 2003), "I was tossing
between where I had come from and where I [was then]. It had taken me 10
years to prove to New York that I could do something. OK, now I've done
that. So do I go home [that is, back to France] or stay and make a
success of my own here?" In 1992
Boulud took steps toward opening a restaurant of his own in Manhattan.
"Le Cirque is a very stressful job,"
he told Florence Fabricant for the New York Times (June 23,
1992), "and I didn’t
want to wait to leave until I was burned out."
When he told Maccioni about his plans, he offered to remain at Le Cirque
for six more months, but Maccioni insisted that he leave immediately.
With the help of a $2 million investment
from Joel Smilow, the former chairman and CEO of Playtex, in May 1993
Boulud opened Daniel, on the ground floor of the Surrey Hotel, on East
76th Street. Soon after it opened, Marion Burros, who was then the
New York Times's lead restaurant reviewer, criticized aspects of the
setting and the service and awarded Daniel only two stars; in response,
Boulud increased Daniel's service staff by 50 percent. After dining at
Daniel again in early November 1993, Burros upped the restaurant's
rating to four stars. (The New York Times's assessments of
restaurants carry considerable weight among in-the-know gourmands and
restaurant lovers. Among the thousands of restaurants that were or are
in business in New York City, the only others that have received four
stars from the New York Times are Bouley Bakery, Lespinasse, Le
Cirque 2000, Jean Georges, and Le Bernardin.) In 1998 Boulud relocated
Daniel to the site of what had been the Mayfair Hotel, on Park Avenue,
and had it decorated in the style of the Venetian Renaissance (in
16th-century Italy). After it reopened, in January 1999, William Grimes
downgraded it to three stars, complaining, as he recalled in the New
York Times (March 14, 2001), that there were
"too many dull dishes";
he disliked the new decor, too, which he described as
"stodgy and awkward, the lighting
harsh." By the end of 1999, Grimes
had restored the restaurant to its exalted status as a four-star
establishment. Boulud's struggle to achieve near-perfection at the
reopened Daniel is the subject of Leslie Brenner's book The Fourth
Star: Dispatches from Inside Daniel Boulud's Celebrated New York
Restaurant (2002). Brenner was impressed by what she saw as Boulud's
lack of pretensions, despite the glitz and glamour with which he has
been identified, as well as the varied aspects of his personality.
"The minute he crossed the door
into the kitchen," she told
Tanasychuk, "he turned into a
different person. He seems like a very gentle and kind person when you
talk to him in the dining room. And maybe he is. But when he crosses the
threshold into the kitchen, when he goes through those swinging doors,
he gets very sort of military. He's like a general who just sort of
galvanizes everyone with his presence."
In the New York Times (March 14,
2001), Grimes praised Daniel for its "soothing
atmosphere . . . a warmth usually associated with small neighborhood
restaurants." Grimes declared that
that special ambience emanated from Boulud himself:
"His personality, as a proprietor,
has been shaped by the little restaurant that his parents once ran, and
if he does not actually stand outside on the sidewalk greeting guests,
there is an unmistakable spirit of generosity hovering over the dining
room that makes Daniel unique."
Since its reopening Daniel has received Gourmet magazine's Top
Table Award. In late 2003 Daniel was also honored with both Wine
Spectator's Grand Award for restaurants and top ratings for cuisine,
service, and decor in the Zagat Survey, a trusted and influential
guide to restaurants nationwide. In addition, Bon Appetit
magazine named Boulud chef of the year in 1999.
One of Boulud's favorite recipes, inspired
by his recollections of his grandmother's cooking, is for what he calls
lamb chops Champvallon: braised lamb chops with onions and potatoes,
flavored with fresh thyme. (Champvallon, an actual or fictional figure,
according to differing sources, was a mistress of King Louis XIV who
prepared the dish as a way to win the king's favor.) Boulud has served
the dish to heads of state and to his family during Sunday dinners.
Typical appetizers offered at Daniel include chilled Charentais melon
veloute (a French canteloupe in a white sauce with Carolina shrimp, opal
basil, lemongrass, and lime); cold curried green-asparagus soup with
sweet red pepper chutney and a crab spring roll; and gingered lobster
with carrots, sugar snap beans and a "pea-shoot
emulsion." Typical main courses
include roasted skate with arugula, "heirloom"
tomatoes, black olives, saffron potatoes, and a fennel-tomato emulsion,
and roasted rack of lamb with a lemon-rosemary crust, grilled radiccio,
honey-glazed eggplant, and a sweet garlic panisses (the latter
resembling a giant French fry made with chickpea puree). More than 1,600
wines are stored in Daniel's wine cellar. Prices for Daniel's
Thanksgiving dinner in 2004 were $110 for an adult and $55 for a child
age 12 or under.
In 1998 Boulud opened Cafe Boulud on New
York City's tony Upper East Side. (The name is that of the cafe run by
his family in France.) Specializing, like Daniel, in French cuisine,
Cafe Boulud offers diners a less formal and less expensive alternative
to Daniel. In 2001 Boulud opened the doors of his third restaurant in
New York City, DB Bistro Moderne. It is described on Boulud's Web site
(Danielnyc.com) as a "casual and
contemporary restaurant" that
serves "updated bistro cooking
rooted in French tradition." In
2002–04 Boulud served the
cruise-ship operator Cunard as a culinary adviser for the legendary ship
the Queen Mary II, which has 10 restaurants on board and can
accommodate more than 2,500 passengers at once. In 2003 Boulud opened
the doors of a second Café Boulud,
this one housed in the Brazilian Court Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida.
Boulud provides 24-hour room service at the hotel and handles private
dining and catering functions on the premises.
Boulud has published several books,
including Cooking with Daniel Boulud (1993), Daniel Boulud’s
Café Boulud Cookbook:
French-American Recipes for the Home Cook (1999), and Letters to
a Young Chef (2003). He pens a bimonthly column, titled
"Daniel's Dish,"
for Elle Decor magazine. He regularly lectures at cooking schools
and universities, among them the Culinary Institute of America and the
French Culinary Institute. Through his Web site, Boulud answers readers'
questions concerning culinary matters.
Boulud has appeared on such television
programs as Fox Five Live, Charlie Rose, Late Show with
David Letterman, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, and Today.
He appears in the documentary film Eat This New York, which
premiered on the Sundance cable channel in 2003. Boulud follows the
time-honored tradition of giving his employees and their families a meal
free of charge once a year, and he has donated his time and resources to
many charitable causes, among them City Meals on Wheels, the American
Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, March of Dimes Birth
Defects Foundation, PBS Channel 13, the Tourette Syndrome Fund, and the
Children's Center for Therapy and Learning. After the September 11, 2001
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, he was among the first
people to organize and prepare meals for the rescue workers.
Boulud, his wife, and their teenage
daughter, Alix, live above Daniel in an apartment with a tiny kitchen.
In an interview with Amy Barrett for the New York Times Magazine
(February 9, 2003), he talked about many of his habits (he gets a
massage every week, for example) and revealed the names of his favorite
restaurant, favorite cooking show on television, favorite cookbook, and
other personal preferences.
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